"It didn't seem so long then," I admitted. "But now, looking back, it feels as if it were much longer."

I could see all the horrible things Peter had done. The way he'd treated the other boys with so little care, so little respect. They were nothing to him, nothing beyond simple playthings, toys to be discarded when he grew weary of them. I couldn't even begin to tell her how many boys I had buried on that Island, boys whose names Peter had forgotten the instant they had died. I remembered them all. I was the only one to mourn them.

"Sometimes I feel very old," I said, looking at the ground. "But also like there are so many things I've never seen or experienced. There was a girl on the Island, only I didn't know she was a girl at first, and I thought- I felt-" I paused and huffed out an irritated breath. I was annoyed with myself, with my inability to say what I meant. I had never been so hesitant before. "And now there's Eddie. And I feel as if I don't understand anything at all."